11 Best Spanish Audiobooks and Courses to Hit the Digital Shelves
Man, there’s a lot of audiobooks and courses out there in the Google-verse.
Are you overwhelmed by the course summaries that promise everything and anything, from miraculous, overnight fluency to getting a Spanish girlfriend?
Well, you’re in the perfect place! I’ve scoured the digital shelves, waded through the muck and found 11 Spanish audiobooks that are guaranteed to satisfy your yearning for language education.
The philosophy behind this course is simple: music can facilitate language acquisition.
The CD is pumped with lessons that use musical rhythms to plant some 200 Spanish verbs and nouns in your long-term memory. The tunes are so catchy that, soon enough, you’ll find yourself singing your way to all the basics of the language.
Other sites use scripted content. FluentU uses a natural approach that helps you ease into the Spanish language and culture over time. You’ll learn Spanish as it’s actually spoken by real people.
FluentU has a wide variety of videos topics, as you can see here:
FluentU brings native videos within reach with interactive transcripts. You can tap on any word to look it up instantly. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used.
Plus, if you see an interesting word you don’t know, you can add it to a vocab list.
Review a complete interactive transcript under the Dialogue tab, and find words and phrases listed under Vocab.
Learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentU’s robust learning engine. Swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re on.
The best part is that FluentU keeps track of the vocabulary that you’re learning, and gives you extra practice with difficult words. It'll even remind you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. Every learner has a truly personalized experience, even if they’re studying with the same video.
From his many moons of experience studying languages, Paul Noble concluded that the traditional language teaching methods are both inefficient and ineffective. So, he devised memorable language tricks of his own and taught them to others.
This program boasts of lessons without rote memorization, vocabulary lists, set phrases or textbooks. With its unorthodox, and sometimes counterintuitive, teaching methods, it makes a bold “No Failure” guarantee.
It trumps all the classic excuses of not learning a new language such as “I just don’t have the time” and “It’s just too difficult!” because you’ll be learning without even trying.
The whole program is on 12 CDs, containing over 13 hours of audio featuring both European and Latin American Spanish.
Dr. Paul Pimsleur’s method is proven by millions of successful 2nd and 3rd language speakers from around the globe. It works because it focuses on the language-learning section of the brain—working intensely on transmitting language in spoken form.
The whole program is carefully structured so that lessons build on one another. It provides you not only with plenty of conversation practice but also explains the basic vocabulary and structures of Spanish.
Many Pimsleur materials do come with a reading component, too, but this is secondary and not heavily focused on. The audio is the huge selling point for them. You can use this program to learn easily and effortlessly, wherever you go. Many people use this program for learning while driving!
For those who believe in the Pareto Principle (80-20 rule)—which states that 80% of a language can be grasped just by familiarizing yourself with 20% of the words—this is the clear stand-out audiobook for you.
Here, you’ve got Spanish in a distilled form, saving you from wracking your brain with words and expressions that native speakers don’t even use. This audiobook features only the most important and usable expressions.
If you’re into listening to music while learning, you’ll definitely get into the beat of the lessons! By working with catchy rhythms and sounds, the brain recalls material quite easily. You could pretty much dance your way to a vocabulary of 500 of the most important words and phrases in español.
This is a language course with cultural insights, travel tips and Spanish etiquette peppered all over. If you suddenly find yourself stuck in Spain, have no fear. This audiobook is definitely your first refuge.
It’s an ensemble of 30 audio lessons that teach you communication tips from asking for directions to ordering food at a local restaurant.
The lessons are handled by bilingual and bicultural mentors who teach you not only pronunciation, accent and intonation—they also guide you on what it’s really like to converse with a native speaker. What you get here are language lessons in a rich cultural context.
Use this as a jumping off point and continue your Spanish learning with the full suite of quality audio programs offered by Innovative Language!
This is, hands down, one of the best audiobooks out there. The complete course covers 9 CDs, 3 course manuals and additional online lessons at the Living Language website.
There are 46 lessons in total. The CDs feature dialogues, vocabulary, audio exercises and reviews that are more nuanced than the other courses available.
Their online language lab features interactive games and challenging quizzes that reinforce the more intensive learning.
The program will benefit students of all levels. They’re so intuitively and organically sequenced that you’ll find yourself glued to the lessons.
It’ll turn your hours on the road into time productively spent by serving up a healthy mix of vocabulary, grammar and conversation tips. You can actually learn the Spanish equivalents of the objects you see on your drive. How’s that for multitasking?
The program comes in 4 CDs that includes simple explanations, examples and lots of conversational practice. A 64-page supplementary reading includes extensive vocabulary lists, dialogue scripts and a helpful grammar reference—all for when you’re parked, of course.
This audiobook proposes that in just 10 minutes a day, you can conquer the Spanish language.
It makes good on that claim by delivering a personalized, step-by-step method of instruction where words are treated as building blocks, which then form phrases and sentences.
The CDs come with a 132-page workbook and 150 sticky labels and flashcards. The components of the set nicely complement each other, giving students a fun and easy way to learn language basics.
Spanish in 10 Minutes a Day is designed not to be intimidating but instead to inspire confidence in students. It’s so much fun that you’ll probably get sucked in and end up spending 30 minutes to an hour studying every day instead of the allotted 10!
This program is from Mark Frobose, who is described as the “only living architect of a successful major language method, a major language memory technique”.
This highly enjoyable and upbeat program is chock full of memory retention techniques that keeps learners motivated. It gives students the flexibility to express complete thoughts through sentence building exercises and effective repetition.
New material is interspersed with older material in order to make for a smooth learning transition. Without knowing it, and in no time, you’ll find yourself conversing in Spanish faster than with other programs.
From the proud line of Dummies books comes this 3-CD set laid out in similar fashion to the last audiobook.
It’s well-paced and starts out dealing with common words and phrases. It then moves to the different parts of speech, sentences and conversing in specific situations. (But don’t worry, it’s perfectly legal to skip around.)
Spanish for Dummies has an extensive word list that can help first-time Spanish learners and refreshers alike.
This would be another program that would be great to listen to inside the car, turning the daily commute into a daily learning opportunity. You definitely won’t be a dummy after finishing the program.
So there you go, 11 audiobooks to base your Spanish language learning on. Check these programs out and pick those that best match your requirements and learning style.
